Stories from the Floor, Current Markets and Portfolio Risk

March 21, 2012 · 6:30 PM

International Securities Exchange (ISE)

Hello All,

I am excited (and a little bit scared) to announce another NYOT meetup that is being generously hosted by the ISE.

Come and spend an hour or so with a veteran options trader Jon Rubin. Jon was an equity option market maker on both the Philadelphia and American Stock Exchanges for over 10 years. He was also a senior investigator at FINRA.

Jon will share some stories from the trading pits and showcase risk management techniques using institutional grade tools used at banks and hedge funds. He will also use this opportunity to poll you regarding the future direction of NYOT.

As always pizza and beverages will be provided.

I hope to see many of you in March. In the mean time, please, feel free to use the mailing list for comments/questions.

thanks for that @Chip Sleeper. Jon was throwing out some inside lingo that might have sounded a bit cryptic. As an intro to one of the sessions perhaps we can ask the speaker to decipher the options lingo. Also, if you hear a term you do not undersand, feel free to interrupt and ask for clarifications. I am sure you are not alone in this. Thanks for coming!

One build on @rna2600 comment: I'm a personal trader, as well, and appreciate it when you are able to an "Options 101" session. But, even when you're doing the more sophisticated sessions for professionals, it would be very helpful if you could define terms and assumptions as you go along. Some of the things that are second nature to professionals could be very helpful to us if we understand the basic thinking.

@rna2600 thanks for your comments. What software are you talking about? Analyze page on TOS, for instance? Something else? Based on the feedback, we will do some software demonstration at future meetups.

Suggestions for future seminars - as a smaller, personal trader, I'd benefit by learning more about how to use the software. I read the comment by Frank Keane and would also welcome hearing more about his experience trading options at a firm.

There was a lot of experienced people with a lot of knowledge to share. As a first meeting in a long time, it's not surprising that it took a little while to break the ice.

I think that asking everyone to introduce themselves was an excellent idea. Hopefully you took notes because that was a great way to find out what people are looking for in these meet-ups and so in what direction direction this should go.

I personally would like to see collaboration on strategy and sharing of cost on data. I would be happy to volunteer my experience at an options prop trading firm and the different approaches taken by ex-market makers versus the systematic traders approach. I'm a systematic trader myself. Thanks for your time and effort and thanks to ISE too.

I?m looking forward to meeting many of you at the next NYOT meetup on March 21. Although it?s a few weeks away, I wanted to start the discussion now to make the event more collaborative.
For this meetup, do you have questions about certain risk management techniques or tools? Ideas for the NYOT group or future meetups (FYI, watch for news about another great event soon?)? Post your questions and ideas here in the discussion so we can make the most of the meetup. See you in a few weeks.

We're about:

Meet options enthusiasts, aficionados, self proclaimed experts and industry veterans. Discuss options mechanics, trading strategies, prudent use of derivatives and pros and cons of options trading: simple and complex options spreads and various sensitivities of options prices to the underlying security, time to expiration, volatility and so on (i.e. the greeks).

Relationships between options and futures markets, pairs trading, inter-index spreading and so on. Portfolio management and current market conditions - how well are we positioned? Both professionals and amateurs are welcome. Those new to the options world are also welcome.

Please, note that the mailing list is open to all members and I encourage you to use it. The purpose of the mailing list is to ask options related questions and to discuss options trading strategies, education, and so on.